"Sir," said the pilot, "let us laugh no longer."

The start was quickly made, and there was soon a considerable distance between the boat and the corvette. The wind and the waves were in the oarsman's favor; the little bark fled swiftly, undulating through the twilight, and hidden by the height of the waves.

The sea seemed to wear a look of sombre, indescribable expectation.

Suddenly, amid the vast and tumultuous silence of the ocean, rose a voice, which, increased by the speaking-trumpet as if by the brazen mask of antique tragedy, sounded almost superhuman.

It was the voice of Captain Boisberthelot giving his commands: "Royal marines," cried he, "nail the white flag to the mainmast. We are about to see our last sunrise."

And the corvette fired its first shot.

"Long live the king!" shouted the crew.

Then from the horizon's verge echoed an answering shout, immense, distant, confused, yet distinct nevertheless:

"Long live the Republic!"

And a din like the peal of three hundred thunderbolts burst over the depths of the sea.

The battle began.

The sea was covered with smoke and fire. Streams of foam, made by the falling bullets, whitened the waves on every side.

The "Claymore" began to spit flame on the eight vessels. At the same time the whole squadron, ranged in a half-moon about the corvette, opened fire from all its batteries. The horizon was in a blaze. A volcano seemed to have burst suddenly out of the sea. The wind twisted to and fro the vast crimson banner of battle, amid which the ships appeared and disappeared like phantoms.

In front the black skeleton of the corvette showed against the red background.

The white banner, with its fleur-de-lis, could be seen floating from the main.

The two men seated in the little boat kept silence. The triangular shallows of the Minquiers, a sort of submarine Trinacrium, is larger than the entire island of Jersey. The sea covers it. It has for culminating point a platform which even the highest tides do not reach, from whence six mighty rocks

detach themselves toward the northeast, ranged in a straight line, and producing the effect of a great wall, which has crumbled here and there. The strait between the plateau and the six reefs is only practicable to boats drawing very little water. Beyond this strait is the open sea.

The sailor who had undertaken the command of the boat made for this strait. By that means he put the Minquiers between the battle and the little bark. He manoeuvred the narrow channel skilfully, avoiding the reefs to larboard and starboard. The rocks now masked the conflict. The lurid light of the horizon, and the awful uproar of the cannonading, began to lessen as the distance increased; but the continuance of the reports proved that the corvette held firm, and meant to exhaust to the very last her one hundred and seventy-one broadsides. Presently the boat reached safe water, beyond the reef, beyond the battle, out of reach of the bullets.

Little by little the face of the sea became less dark; the rays, against which the darkness struggled, widened; the foam burst into jets of light, and the tops of the waves gave back white reflections.

Day appeared.

The boat was out of danger so far as the enemy were concerned, but the most difficult part of the task remained. She was saved from grape-shot, but not from shipwreck. She was a mere egg-shell, in a high sea, without deck, without sail, without mast, without compass, having no resource but her oars, in the presence of the ocean and the hurricane, an atom at the

mercy of giants.

-

Then, amid this immensity, this solitude, lifting his face, whitened by the morning, the man in the bow of the boat looked fixedly at the one in the stern, and said:

"I am the brother of him you ordered to be shot."

The old man slowly raised his head. He who had spoken was a man of about thirty. His forehead was brown with seatan; his eyes were peculiar: they had the keen glance of a sailor in the open pupils of a peasant. He held the oars vigorously in his two hands. His air was mild.

In his belt were a dirk, two pistols, and a rosary.

"Who are you?" asked the old man.

"I have just told you."

"What do you want with me?"

The sailor shipped the oars, folded his arms, and replied:

There was a silence. The sailor seemed for an instant confused by the question. He repeated:

"I say that I mean to kill you."

"And I ask you, what for?"

The sailor's eyes flashed lightning:

"Because you killed my brother."

The old man replied with perfect calmness:

"I began by saving his life."

"That is true. You saved him first, then you killed

him.'

"It was not I who killed him.”

"Who, then?"

"His own fault."

The sailor stared open-mouthed at the old man; then his eyebrows met again in their murderous frown.

"What is your name?" asked the old man.

"Halmalo; but you do not need to know my name in order to be killed by me."

At this moment the sun rose. A ray struck full upon the sailor's face, and vividly lighted up that savage countenance. The old man studied it attentively.

The cannonading, though it still continued, was broken and irregular. A vast cloud of smoke weighed down the horizon. The boat, no longer directed by the oarsman, drifted to leeward. The sailor seized in his right hand one of the pistols at his belt, and the rosary in his left.

The old man raised himself in his full height.

"You believe in God?" said he.

"Our Father which art in heaven," replied the sailor; and he made the sign of the cross.

"Have you a mother?"

"Yes."

He made a second sign of the cross.

Then he resumed :

"It is all said. I give you a minute, my lord." And he cocked the pistol.

6

"Why do you call me my lord'?"
"Because you are a lord.
"Have you a lord - you?"

That is plain enough to be seen."

"Yes, and a grand one. Does one live without a lord?" "Where is he?"

"I don't know. He has left this country. He is called the Marquis de Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay, Prince in Brittany; he is the lord of the Seven Forests. I never saw him, but that does not prevent his being my master."

"And if you were to see him, would you obey him?"

"Indeed, yes. Why, I should be a heathen if I did not obey him. I owe obedience to God; then to the king, who is like God; and then to the lord, who is like the king. But we have nothing to do with all that. You killed my brother; I must kill you."

"Agreed; I killed your brother. I did well."

The sailor clinched the pistol more tightly.

"Come," said he.

"So be it," said the old man. Still perfectly composed, he added, "Where is the priest?"

The sailor stared at him.

"The priest?"

"Yes; the priest. I gave your brother a priest; you owe me one."

"I have none," said the sailor. And he continued, "Are priests to be found out at sea?"

The convulsive thunderings of battle sounded more and more distant.

"Those who are dying yonder have theirs," said the old

man.

"That is true," murmured the sailor; "they have the chaplain."

The old man continued: "You will lose me my soul; that is a serious matter."

The sailor bent his head in thought.

"And in losing me my soul," pursued the old man, "you lose your own. Listen. I have pity on you. Do what you choose. As for me, I did my duty a little while ago, first, in saving your brother's life, and afterward in taking it from him; and I am doing my duty now in trying to save your soul. flect. It is your affair. Do you hear the cannon-shots at this

instant? There are men perishing yonder, there are desperate creatures dying, there are husbands who will never again see their wives, fathers who will never again see their children, brothers who, like you, will never again see their brothers. And by whose fault? Your brother's-yours! You believe in God, do you not? Well, you know that God suffers in this moment; he suffers in the person of his Most Christian Son the King of France, who is a child as Jesus was, and who is a prisoner in the fortress of the Temple. God suffers in his Church of Brittany; he suffers in his insulted cathedrals, his desecrated Gospels, in his violated houses of prayer, in his murdered priests. What did we intend to do, we, with that vessel which is perishing at this instant? We were going to succor God's children. If your brother had been a good servant, if he had faithfully done his duty like a wise and prudent man, the accident of the carronade would not have occurred, the corvette would not have been disabled, she would not have got out of her course, she would not have fallen in with this fleet of perdition, and at this hour we should be landing in France,all, like valiant soldiers and seamen as we were, sabre in hand, the white flag unfurled, numerous, glad, joyful; and we should have gone to help the brave Vendean peasants to save France, to save the king; we should have been doing God's work. This was what we meant to do; this was what we should have done. It is what I the only one who remains set out to do. But you oppose yourself thereto. In this contest of the impious against the priests, in this strife of the regicides against the king, in this struggle of Satan against God, you are on the devil's side. Your brother was the demon's first auxiliary; you are the second. He commenced; you finish. You are with the regicides against the throne; you are with the impious against the Church. You take away from God his last resource. Because I shall not be there, I, who represent the king, the hamlets will continue to burn, families to weep, priests to bleed, Brittany to suffer, the king to remain in prison, and Jesus Christ to be in distress. And who will have caused this? You! Go on; it is your affair. I depended on you to help bring about just the contrary of all this. I deceived myself. yes! it is true,-you are right: I killed your brother. Your brother was courageous: I recompensed that. He was culpable; I punished that. He had failed in his duty; I did not fail in mine. What I did, I would do again. And I swear by the great

Ah,